Disclaimer: The characters of Chip, Dale, Monterey Jack, Zipper, Gadget, and Foxglove are copyright Walt Disney Corporation and are used without permission. No material profit is intended through this work (in other words, I ain't makin' no money off this, and no one is allowed to profit from this either). All other characters are owned by the author. Feel free to distribute without alterations.
Part One: The Sundering
Chapter 1: Picking Up the Pieces
"Chip....!"
Darkness... and a feeling of moisture...?
Pain... but not agonizing....
He opened his eyes.
Dizziness... world spinning... settling now.....
Slowly the chipmunk in the fedora came back to his senses. Questions buzzed in his head--unusual questions; not the usual ones that permeated his consciousness, like "Who could have done this?", "How can we best solve the case?", or "How am I going to tell her I love her?". Instead, he was pondering simple things, like "Who am I?", "What just happened?", and "Is it raining?".
He looked down at himself. He saw his bomber jacket, torn and scraped in a few places, but otherwise intact. He saw that he had some bruises, but on the whole they didn't seem too bad. He felt his head; it hurt just a bit... the hat! He remembered the hat, the jacket, his appearance...! His brain quickly made the connections.
Over the next few moments, Chip Maplewood regained his identity. He was the leader of the Rescue Rangers, an organization dedicated to helping out those in need and punishing evil-doers and law-breakers. He was a detective, he was a crime-fighter, one among several who worked together as a team. The team.... What happened to his team?
The last thing he remembered before regaining consciousness was staring into the eyes of one of his teammates, and opening his mouth to say what had been in his soul ever since he met her. Something he had been trying to get out for some time now; he had been searching for just the right thing to say, just the right gesture to make to demonstrate his love for her. In the heat of that moment, however, fancy words and romantic gestures would be impossible; there was simply no time for those things now. Chip had decided, at that moment, just to say those "three little words." If he did not survive the crash, he thought, he at least would not die with the regret of never telling her....
"CHIP...!"
That voice....
He did a quick search of his surroundings. The scene he beheld reminded him of a movie he saw with his best friend once, a stupid adventure/horror flick about people made of... straw? Anyway, they appeared to have crashed inside a city, but it was not the same city they were flying over minutes ago. It was still nighttime, but the torrential thunderstorm they were flying through had been replaced by a calmer, though no less humid, clime. Above him, flashes of light went off intermittently, accompanied by faint rumbling noises. Fog obscured his vision, but it wasn't so thick that Chip could not make out his immediate surroundings. Where was the illumination coming from? he thought. He saw what appeared to be street lamps... but they didn't seem to be regular street lamps; they burned like giant candles, and even though they were not covered, they appeared to have been burning for a long time. The architecture of the buildings was even more bewildering to Chip; every single one was in a bad state of disrepair, and what remained was in a style that was entirely unknown to him. Perhaps most unsettling of all, the place seemed to be scaled for rodents....
He also realized that he was still sitting in the co-pilot's seat of their plane, still buckled in. Unfortunately, he saw that there was not much left of it. Wreckage trailed off behind the twisted fuselage; apparently the plane had crashed into a street, and broke up as it skidded to a stop. He quickly glanced to his left; the pilot's seat was empty! In fact, he was the only one inside the cockpit. Where was....?
"Chip, get over here will ya? I think... she needs help!"
Chip was now fully cognizant of his surroundings; he knew who was calling him and where the call was coming from. As he mentally noted the curious observations he had just made, he unbuckled his seat belt, jumped out of the ruined cockpit, and ran off in the direction of the person who had called him. As he made his way towards the location of his summons, he noted the street, like the buildings, were in bad shape--pitted and littered with rubble that appeared to have fallen from above. A few moments later, on a street corner underneath one of those strange lamps, he came upon a scene that both comforted and disquieted him.
Another chipmunk, in a hawaiian-print shirt, hunched over the prone form of a pinkish-brown bat....
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"Dale!"
The chipmunk in the loud shirt looked up from his crouch to face his best friend coming towards him. Dale S. Oakmont's soul was flooded with relief; he had been worried about leaving Chip behind in the cockpit, but circumstances had forced him to see to his chiropterid companion. Not to mention the fact that he wanted to get a better look at the weird place they found themselves in; had they gone through a time warp or something...?
"Dale, are you OK?" Chip asked as he crouched down next to Dale over the supine bat. The bat's head was cradled in Dale's lap; Chip noticed an unsettling bump on her head. Not her, too, he thought.
"Yeah, I-I'm alright, but...." Dale's voice trailed off as his mind reviewed the events of the past few minutes. He was the only one who had remained conscious and inside the cockpit during the crash. Most of it was a mixture of blurs, screams, and crunching noises that not even a Surround Sound system could do justice to. The fear in his voice, though, mostly came from the portion he remembered most; the horror he felt at that moment ensured that he would remember it with absolute clarity.
"W-when we hit that last bump... r-right before we stopped.... I heard a snap... and I couldn't feel her around me anymore! I-I don't think she had time to spread her wings before she... she...." Dale was on the verge of tears, and what's more, he wasn't sure why. They had survived worse crashes than this, and they had sustained injuries because of them, but he had never felt this terrified about someone being injured....
"She'll be all right, Dale," Chip said, halting Dale's rising tide of emotion. While his lifelong chum had been trying to relate the bat's abortive flight, Chip was examining her cranium to see if there were any cuts. He found none. Chip had then moved his head next to the bat's chest, checking her pulse and respiration. While he was not entirely familiar with bat physiognomy, Chip believed that her heart and lungs were functioning normally. "I think it's just a concussion; she just needs rest," he diagnosed.
Dale watched his best bud's examination with some irritation. Here he was, trying to tell him what had happened, and Chip was casually looking over his concussed companion like he was some kind of... oh, wait; Chip was a detective. Still, he was a little annoyed at seeing Chip's head resting on her chest.... "I already did that, Chip," he protested.
Chip looked back up. "I was just making sure...."
"Making sure of what? That I didn't goof up like always?"
What brought that on, Chip wondered. "I was just checking her, Dale. Why are you being so defensive?" He then remembered where he had placed his head a moment ago. The look on Dale's face cinched it; he had to give him a rib.
"Jealous?"
Dale's face reddened under his fur. Ever since he had met the bat, Chip had ribbed him about her adulation of him. Every so often, Chip would address him with one of the terms of endearment she used just for him. "Could you pass the cheese waffles, sweetie?" was a question Dale often heard over breakfast. Over time, even his other teammates joined in; whenever she visited their tree headquarters, no matter how hard he tried to avoid her, she invariably found him--his teammates always ratted him out. Sometimes, she would come over while they were watching television. Almost immediately after her arrival, every single one of his teammates would excuse themselves, leaving Dale and the enamored chiropterid alone. While he was usually annoyed by this conspiracy to commit romance, he was also, in a sense, gladdened. After all, he did enjoy her company, and he found that they were alike in many ways....
Still, Dale knew his heart didn't belong to this shy, sweet-natured bat, but to another.... So why was he being defensive...?
"I-I'm not jealous," was all Dale could stammer in reply to Chip's question.
"Oh, yes, you are. You should see your face!" Chip replied.
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"AM NOT!"
"ARE TOO!"
Their discussion was about to degenerate into another one of those incidents which would end up with them rolling around on the ground screaming words so fast no one could understand them, when a light moan cut off Dale's next "am not." In between them, the bat stirred. As he looked down at her, another wave of relief flooded Dale's soul; she was coming round. He had been calling her name from the time the bump took her from his arms to the time he had noticed Chip stirring in the cockpit. Hopefully, Dale thought, she'll still remember it.
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"Foxy...."
The chipmunks' heated bickering had penetrated the blackness of unconsciousness, bringing her into a haze of confusing sights and sounds. Foxglove Fairmont could not remember much prior to this moment; the last thing that was clear was hearing a very loud bang, which frightened her into clenching her beloved aloha shirt-wearing hunk of rodent as if for dear life; if this was it, she wanted to die holding the one she loved. Now, she felt herself lying down, with her head.... My head is killing me, was the first coherent thought that crossed her mind.
Then, she heard her name; not only that, but her name spoken by Dale! Slowly, she opened her eyes as the haze of semi-consciousness began to clear. She saw the faces of two chipmunks, one of which was the 'munk of her dreams. Funny, she thought, are they supposed to be spinning around like that?
"Oooooh... look at all the cute Dales...." she muttered with a dreamy expression. The roulette wheel that was the world slowed and stopped, allowing her to take a good look (and listen) at her surroundings. As her violet eyes scanned the area, however, her face quickly took on a fearful tone. She saw the dark, ruined landscape lit by weird, candle-like lamps, and her keen ears heard... things moving about nearby. Was that someone running, or was it hobbling...? Didn't I watch this movie with Dale a while ago?
"Wait," she said as she sat up with Dale's assistance. "Where are we? Are we...?" She apprehensively turned to face Dale.
"No, Foxy, you're... we're OK, thank goodness." As Dale said this, Foxglove noticed a certain tenderness in his manner; he held her wingtips gently, and his face reflected almost infinite relief, like he had recovered something nearly lost. A quick echolocation of him revealed a slowing pulse and deep breathing; he is happy to see me OK, she thought. There is hope!
"Dale says you flew out of the Wing the hard way," Chip added. "We hit a bump; your seat belt must have broke. He found you here."
"Oooh... That must be why my head feels like it's about to split open," Foxglove said as she rubbed her cranium, letting out a slight "Ow!" as her wingtip passed over the point of impact.
A smirk crossed Chip's face as he heard this; another ribbing opportunity had presented itself. "Want to kiss it and make it better, Dale?"
It looked as if the fur on both Dale's and Foxglove's faces was turning red. He opened his mouth....
"AAAAHH!"
A female's scream shattered the general stillness, interrupting the chipmunks' latest argument. Chip, Dale, and Foxglove all turned to face the direction it came from. They knew it came from somewhere in the fog beyond the remains of the cockpit. They also knew who had made it....
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"Gadget!"
A few moments before she heard that call, Gadget Hackwrench was, like Chip and Foxglove, immersed in unconsciousness. She had begun to come round at the same time Chip came upon Dale and Foxglove. A familiar series of sounds helped her complete her recovery; high-pitched voices saying "am not" and "are too" at a rapid pace. I wonder what it's over this time, she thought absently.
The last thing she had remembered was hearing a snap, followed by the frightening sensation of unassisted flight resulting from being catapulted out a cockpit. Just prior to that, she saw the cockpit tear away. No doubt about it, the canopy ejector needs work, she thought. Before that, however, she was looking into the eyes of one of her teammates. He was about to say something, and she knew what it was. He was going to say those "three little words"; with disaster about to befall them, there was no time for fancy words or romantic gestures. In the split second between Chip opening his mouth and the initial impact, Gadget struggled to decide how she would react to this revelation. She wasn't quite sure if her feelings for Chip were real; they reminded her of... painful things. And then there was Dale; she knew Dale loved her too, even though his feelings seemed to border more on simple infatuation. She was caught in a paradox; she wanted to return Chip's affection, but she didn't want to hurt Dale or risk going through....
Reflecting back on that moment, Gadget almost felt relief that the crash had occurred at that moment. But there was no time for reflection now, she had to see if everyone was all right.
She realized she was lying face down on what appeared to be a dark street. Illumination was coming from some weird lights on poles. This place looks neglected, she thought, who was keeping those lamps lit? The architecture of the crumbling buildings was strange and... mouse-sized? What was going on here? Did they land in some hitherto unknown part of town that only rodents inhabited, or used to inhabit? As she looked about, she noticed she had landed facing the... oh, golly....
The Ranger Wing, the propeller-driven vehicle which was her team's preferred method of getting from Point A to Point B, as well as Gadget's most prized invention, was a shambles. The twisted reamins of the cockpit were closest to her; she remembered being thrown from the pilot's seat when it skidded into a hole in the street; I gotta find better materials for seat belts, she thought. The rest of the plane was in pieces of various shapes and sizes; here lay one of the engines, there lay some electrical wires, elsewhere a battery. It'll never fly again, she thought. Well, maybe if I strip down one of the engines, her thought streamed on, and repair that wing, maybe I can rig up a single-engine, two-seater. So I guess it could fly again, but then again, we could only take two at a time; maybe I can fix up an extra seat....
Hold on, Gadget, she thought, better see if everyone's all right first. I better get up and get started....
"AAAAHH!"
A jolt of extreme pain emenating from her right leg put a quick halt to that plan. She turned over and looked down, somewhat afraid of what she would see. Her fears were confirmed as she could see a swollen bulge around her right knee through her jumpsuit leg. What next? she thought. First, I crash, again, now I think....
"Gadget!"
Her spirits lifted when she heard that name called; at least she was not the only one left. "Over here, guys!" she called out in the direction the shout had come from, past the wrecked cockpit. "Hurry!" She began to hear footsteps, two sets of them, running towards her; my knights come to my rescue, she thought somewhat resignedly. While Gadget did sometimes resent the fact that Chip or Dale (usually Chip) would have to "rescue" her from some deathtrap, or make sure that she had taken every precaution before she tested some new invention, or help her clean up after that invention exploded, she was much more appreciative of their assistance than not. Besides, she had saved Chip or Dale (usually Dale), as well the other Rangers, from their fair share of tight spots, too....
"She's over there!" cried out a voice Gadget did not expect to hear. She had clearly heard both Chip and Dale call her name; so why did that voice belong to Foxglove? Was she flying overhead? she thought. In this fog, she would have to be low, and I would hear her flapping, unless she was using her sonar, in which case....
Her questions were answered as she saw two forms quickly approach out of the fog. One was clearly Chip; the fedora was a dead giveaway. The other was slightly larger, and seemed to have... two heads? As they neared, Gadget saw that this form was actually Dale carrying Foxglove piggy-back, her wings draped around his shoulders like a leathery shawl. While Dale's face showed some strain, he didn't seem to mind; neither did Foxglove, as her smile and wagging tail indicated.
And Chip.... It felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from Gadget's shoulders. He's OK, was the only thought that crossed her mind as he knelt down beside her.
"Are you all right?" Chip asked breathlessly. His face relected both concern and relief at once.
So good to hear his voice again... stay focused, Gadget. "It's my knee, I think one of my cruciate ligaments may be torn," she said, indicating the swollen joint.
"Let me know if it hurts," Chip warned as he began to gingerly apply pressure to various points on the inflammed joint. Every poke brought with it a sting, which was greeted by a grunt from Gadget, but the third, which was placed on the back of her knee, brought pain so excruciating she screamed again, her eyes tearing up with agony.
"Anterior cruciate," both Chip and Gadget diagnosed in chorus.
"Sorry," Chip said, adding as if in penance, "I'd better wrap it." Of course, Chip's once-over was no substitute for a proper medical examination, but, considering the circumstances, it would have to do. Great, Gadget thought, I'll probably need surgery to repair the damage; I'll be out of action for months. But that was in the future; for now, she had to see to her team. She filed away plans her nimble brain had already concocted for a wheelchair, an automated assistance system for her workshop, and rehabilitation, and got back to the task at hand. She took a piece of spare cloth out from one of the many pockets in her jumpsuit (ostensibly used for patching leaking hoses) and handed it Chip.
As he wrapped up Gadget's knee, Chip felt a little remorseful. It always depressed him to see the one he loved in any sort of pain, whether it was from an injured knee or from whenever she was forced to remember the two greatest losses of her life; to see her blue eyes crying was something he never wanted to see, let alone cause, as he just did.
Dale, too, hated to see the one he loved cry; in fact, he hated to see anyone cry, period. Maybe a joke will cheer everyone up, he thought. Maybe the one about the marathon runner and the....
"Wait a minute," Foxglove warned from over Dale's shoulder.
All eyes turned to her. Her large ears were twitching excitedly. They swiveled to her left, and her eyes followed. "You hear somethin', Foxy?" Dale whispered.
"Something's coming. Something large."
As one Chip, Dale, and Gadget turned their ears, and then their gazes, toward the fog where they now also heard heavy footsteps approaching. They readied themselves to fight or flee....
Except Foxglove, who had already echolocated the approaching form. She already knew who he was and was about to happily identify him, when the form spoke in an all too familiar Australian accent.
"You alright, Gadget luv?"
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"Monty!"
Approximately thirty seconds before hearing his name spoken by four of his closest friends, Monterey Jack Colby unbuckled his seat belt and jumped from the cockpit of the Ranger Wing. Two seconds before, the plane had struck a hole in the street where its reamins now rested. This had resulted in several things happening: the thoughtfully added canopy (finally) came off, Gadget and Foxglove's seat belts snapped, sending them both flying, but most importantly, the injured fly he was holding flew out of his grasp.
A terrible dilemma had presented itself to Monty at that moment. Each of his three flying friends would probably need help after landing, but which one should he give his attention to? In the two seconds in between the bump and his leaving the cockpit, Monty found himself reasoning this way: Foxglove could fly on her own, so she should be all right, and Gadget had crashed more times than he could care to remember; no matter how bad the crash was, she always seemed to have a knack for avoiding life-threatening injury. The fly, on the other hand, was already injured, and was semi-conscious; he would be unable to avoid sustaining additional injury on landing.
Unfortunately, Monty's rescue operation didn't quite go as planned. As the cockpit was still moving when he jumped out, he struck the ground hard and fast; the sting of a sprained ankle greeted him upon landing. But he didn't have time for pain; he had survived much worse injuries than this. Besides, that was probably nothing compared to the pain his muscid mate was going through. He began a frantic search, moving quickly, in spite of his ankle, from spot to spot in a zigzag pattern, following the direction he saw the fly head before the fog obscured him. Over the next ten seconds, his senses searched for any sign of his friend; a trace of the red sweater he always wore, the glint of fly wings, the familiar buzzing sound....
His search so far being fruitless, Monty was almost at his wit's end. I won't let a pal of mine die, he thought, not this time! He had already lost another of his closest friends to a crash years ago; it was an albatross he had not yet managed to shed. Even though he knew that he was not responsible for his death, Monty felt that he if he had done something, anything,.... Now, the fear that he had lost another longtime companion was looming large in his soul. He was about to call out his pally's name when a chance flash of lightning brought the relieving image of a prone fly to his eyes.
Un-bloomin'-believable! was all Monty could think as he came upon his friend. For in the dim glow of the foggy lights around him, he saw that the fly had landed in a pothole near the curb of the street. The water inside, combined with the soft mud underneath, had cushioned the impact; Monty also noted with considerable relief that he had landed face up, and was still breathing. Must be Christmastime, he thought, this must be a miracle!
It was at this point that he heard a scream. Gadget! He quickly but gently scooped up the fly, making sure the makeshift bandage that covered his head wound was still dry and secure and hobbled in the direction the scream had come from. He began hearing other familiar voices out of the fog, punctuated by a second scream from Gadget. "She better'd be alright, 'sall I gotta say," he grumbled; he had had enough injured friends for a month, let alone one day. He knew he was getting close when he heard Foxglove's warning; he decided to both announce his prescence and check on Gadget at the same time.
Gadget's face let him know that she would be giving him a running hug if she could; he noticed the wrapping around her right knee. "Just a torn anterior cruciate ligament, Monty," she stated simply as she tied her strawberry blonde hair into a ponytail; the tear streaks on her face belied the cheefulness of her tone.
"We were about to start looking for you two," Chip announced as he helped Gadget to her feet, or foot, as it were. He had noticed that Monty was holding something, and he knew who it was.
"Yeah," Monty said ruefully. "That was a nasty bump we took back there. He took off like a shot. I found him in a pothole a ways behind me. Bloody lucky he ain't more hurt than he is."
Everyone gathered around Monty and looked down at his charge....
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"Zipper...."
He had remembered someone holding him.... Then a loud bang which scared him back to reality.... Then he saw the ground nearing, saw the bat and chipmunk screaming, heard the big mouse holding him screaming. Somehow, everything bacame crystal clear; who he was, where he was, why he was there, in that cockpit.
Perfect, Zipper Lightringer thought, the perfect end to the perfect day. First, a good friend of his (in spite of the fact that she was considered a predator of his species) gets kidnapped and used by the Rangers' worst enemy as a sort of sonic battering ram. Then he and his comrades rush to the rescue, during the course of which Dale goes absolutely ballistic (can't imagine why). Then something exploded. And then....
His head hurt like Hades when he got to that part. He had had to close his eyes to shut out the pain. He felt a tightness around his head; maybe it was bandage. Then he felt rough bumps and heard screeching noises. Then he felt... air whooshing by? Am I flying? he thought.
Then he felt water around him. Am I swimming now? Did we crash in the ocean? No, I can't swim; I must in some shallow pond or puddle.
Then he felt something lifting him, lifting him quickly but gently. He kept his eyes closed; he knew it was Monty--the size of the hand and the scent of the fur were both dead giveaways. He heard a scream; then he heard the booming voice of the big Aussie holding him, asking if Gadget was alright (Thought that was her, he confirmed to himself).
Then Zipper heard his name spoken by people he knew were his friends. He opened his eyes and saw Chip holding Gadget, Dale... was he carrying Foxy piggyback? Boy, he thought, they must have made some serious declarations of love while I was out. Anyway, the pain he felt seemed to lessen when he saw that they were all still alive and in one piece. He didn't know how, but he felt that he would be okay as well; something--he didn't know what--had brought them through this disaster, and had seen to it that they would all live to see another day.
"Hi, guys," Zipper squeaked rather weakly. Through the unique combination of squeaking and pantomime that somehow anyone could understand, he indicated that his head still hurt, but he believed he'd live. How he knew that, he didn't know; he just did.
The smiles and laughter of his friends provided infinite comfort to Zipper as he closed his eyes for what he knew would not be forever.
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In these otherworldly ruins, the six souls had reunited. They had somehow survived the crash which had destroyed their vehicle, although they had not survived without harm. However, to souls like theirs, simply being alive was all that mattered. They spent the next few moments recounting the aftermath of the disaster; who flew where, who found whom, and how. Now that they had established their mutual safety, their thoughts now turned to other things....
...like where the heck they were.
"Where the hack are we, anyway?" Monty wondered as he looked around. In his search for Zipper, he had not noticed the strange landscape around him; the dilapidated buildings, heaps of rubble, and strange, ghostly lights were just a little unsettling even to one of his experience. "I mean, I've been to haunted castles, rodent ruins, and lotsa other weird-lookin' places, but this one takes the cheesecake!"
"It looks kinda creepy," Foxglove stated with a tinge of anxiety. The lights reminded her of the candles her former master sometimes used; they burned with the same kind of strange, flickering movement that made them look almost alive.
"Yeah, it looks like 'The Lost City of the Wicker People,'" Dale said with a glint in his eye. New experiences always excited him, especially when they allowed him to relive one of his favorite B-movies. "You think they could be around, Chip?"
"Dale, could you be serious for one moment? That was just a stupid movie!" Chip shot back; if he wasn't already supporting Gadget, Chip would have bonked his best friend for that question. He did, however, note some resemblance.
"Hey, it could happen!" Dale retorted with a leather-shawled shrug. "And that movie was not stupid, it was surreal," he concluded, his face reflecting a "so there" attitude.
"Dale, the 'Wicker People' do not--"
"What exactly is powering these lamps, anyway?" Gadget asked, aborting the impending argument. "I mean, I don't see any electrical or gas lines going up to them, and yet they glow just as brightly as halogen lamps!"
"Maybe they're...." Foxglove began, but she couldn't finish her thought; she was beginning to hear things.... As the others talked, she began echolocating the fog around them.
"Maybe the lines are inside the poles," Chip suggested.
"They kinda look like ghost lights to me," Monty said. The phenomenon of strange far-off lights with no apparent source was familiar to him. Except, in this case, the ghost lights were very near.
"There's something else bothering me too," Gadget continued, her mind now onto something else which she had no explanation for. "When we hit that last bump, I flew forward out of the cockpit, but Zipper, according to Monty, flew to the left, while Foxglove flew to the right. Shouldn't all three of us have flown forward, since that was the direction we were moving in?"
As Gadget spoke, the shawl around Dale's shoulders tightened into a near choke hold. Dale was about to say something about how Foxglove was being too forward again when he began to feel her quivering on his back. Then... he too began to hear things, things that he had heard before, in his late-night horror flick experiences, only this time....
"I mean, I think it's really lucky that Zipper flew into that puddle, and Foxy only hit her head on some soft ground, don't get me wrong, but I just think it's weird that they would defy physics like that..."
Gadget's voice trailed off as she realized that no one was listening to her anymore. As she followed her friends' stares, her eyes fell on Dale and Foxglove, both of whom were very pictures of terror. Their heads moved back and forth; their eyes and ears pivoting and turning as if on sensory overload. Their fur on the backs of their necks was standing straight up. And they were both trembling violently, as if the Devil himself had appeared before them.
"Dale, Foxy...." Chip asked with some concern. "What's wrong?"
"G-g-guys...." Dale said in a trembling voice. "We are n-n-not alone."
"Things... all around... us," Foxglove added with great fear in her tone.
Chip, Gadget, Monty, and Zipper then began to hear what was scaring their companions. Growling noises; the noises made by big cats right before they pounce. The slurping, wet sounds of salivation. The slow, methodical footsteps of stalking predators. The sound of claws scraping against stone. The sound of swords being drawn...?
In the approximately ninety seconds since the Ranger Wing came to a stop, creatures had begun to move in its general direction. They were helped in this endeavour by many things: the crunching and screeching noises of the crash itself, the sounds of chipmunks arguing, the sound of a mouse screaming twice in pain, the bellicose introduction of another mouse, not to mention the smell.... It was a smell that had not been in that place for a very long time, and some of the creatures were quite glad to be sensing it again. Some of these creatures felt the rodents were intruders on their land, while others felt the rodents would make a tasty meal....
The six souls were all looking around now. At first, the ghostly fog would reveal nothing of their unexpected company. Then... forms began moving around, swiftly and deftly. Shadows could seen passing from one point to another. At this point, it was impossible to tell what size or shape these creatures were; the fog effectively obscured these details. But the smell... the smell was horrific, like that of a charnel house....
Less than two minutes before, the six souls had endured a moment of climactic fear. Now, they were all in mortal fear again....
They were definitely not alone....
And their hosts had only one thing in mind for them....